Jeez, that was quite a hissy fit Tom DeLay had, calling Ronnie Earle a rogue prosecutor, a partisan fanatic and an unabashed partisan zealot out for personal revenge.

Ronnie Earle? Our very own mild-mannered -- well, let's be honest, bland as toast, eternally unexciting, Mr. Understatement, Old Vanilla -- Ronnie Earle? If the rest of Tom DeLay's defense is as accurate as his description of Ronnie Earle, DeLay might as well have himself measured for a white jumpsuit right now.

For the one-zillionth time, of the 15 cases Ronnie Earle has brought against politicians over the years, 12 were against Democrats. Earle was so aggressive in going after corrupt Democrats, the Republicans never even put up a candidate against him all during the '80s. Partisan is not a word anyone can honestly use about Ronnie Earle, but that sure doesn't stop the TV blabbermouths. So many of them have bought the Republican spin that Earle is on a partisan witch-hunt, the watchdogs like Media Matters can hardly keep up.

<snip>

Back in 2003, when DeLay was involved in a sleazy legislative payoff to a big donor, his press secretary offered this defense, "It is wrong and unethical to link legislative activities to campaign contributions." It is precisely that upside-down quality about DeLay's bulletproof sense of moral rectitude that makes it so bizarre. Suddenly, it is not wrong or unethical to try to slip an unrelated amendment to help a campaign donor into the defense appropriations bill, it's wrong and unethical to raise questions about it.

To tell the truth, I don't think Tom DeLay is smart enough to keep getting away with this stuff.

Speaking of the aforementioned Dick DeGuerin, he is now defending Tom DeLay. Want to know how good DeGuerin is? One of his recent clients was Robert Durst, heir to a New York real estate fortune, who admitted killing and dismembering an unfortunate vic in Galveston. Durst was a suspect in a California killing at the time and had moved to Galveston posing as a deaf-mute woman.

Durst jumped bail on the Galveston charge and was arrested in Pennsylvania for stealing a chicken sandwich while carrying two guns and $38,000. DeGuerin got him acquitted on the murder charge on the grounds of self-defense, but they nailed him for the guns and tampering with evidence -- that would be dismembering the corpse. They let him slide on the chicken sandwich charge. I swear, I'm not making up any of this. That's how good Dick DeGuerin is.

If I were fool enough to give DeGuerin advice, it would be, "Don't let DeLay on the stand." The man just can't help himself -- he's just too mean, he always pushes it that step too far, like the cheap shot about Earle not coming to work unless there's a press conference on. (Ronnie Earle comes to work every day -- you can ask anyone at the county courthouse.)

The stench of rotting ethics

Only Tom DeLay's removal can freshen our nation's capitol

AUSTIN, Texas -- The John Wesley Hardin Died for You Society has a theme song that goes: "He wasn't really bad. He was just a victim of his times." I sometimes find this useful in trying to explain Texas political ethics to outsiders.

My theory is that few Texas pols are actual crooks, they just have an overdeveloped sense of the extenuating circumstance. Woodrow Wilson Bean once warned himself that he was skatin' close to the thin edge of ethics. After a moment, he concluded, "Woodrow Wilson Bean, ethics is for young lawyers."

(snip)

I grant you a certain resemblance to some of our more notorious standards: "Everybody does it" and "They did it first" are actually considered excuses here. But I categorically reject cultural responsibility for Tom DeLay. Real Texas politicians are neither hypocritical nor sanctimonious. A pol does what he must -- fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly -- but no pol of the Old School, when DeLay served in the Lege, would add self-righteousness to shady dealing.

(snip)

Another quality that makes DeLay an un-Texas pol is that he's mean. By and large, Texas pols are an agreeable set of less-than-perfect humans and quite often well-intentioned. As Carl Parker of Port Arthur used to observe, if you took all the fools out of the Lege, it would not be a representative body any longer. The old sense of collegiality was strong, and vindictive behavior -- punishing pols for partisan reasons -- was simply not done. But those are Tom DeLay's specialties, his trademarks. The Hammer is not only genuinely feared in Washington, he is, I'm sorry to say, hated.

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